Wounded
by J. Random Lurker
Summary: Dib acts funny at school. Zim suspects the human is hiding something... and Zim is right. Rated R for gore. Complete.


**Wounded  
a squishy Zim fic  
by J. Random Lurker**  
  
---- 

Zim hated sitting in the skool cafeteria at lunch.

There is no quicker way to find hate of someone, he thought, than to have to watch them eat. The food being stuffed into the mouthhole and filling up the cheeks. The rigid, swirling motions of the jaw. The crunching noises as the horrible filthy food-stuff breaks down behind the teeth. The loud wet gulping and sucking as the eater swallows, sending the food bits down to an unspecified doom deep inside the chest cavity.

Watching humans eat was like watching horrible cow-beasts eat; bland-eyed complacent FOOD animals, getting fat before slaughter. It was a luxurious way to build up his hate, his endless fury at the stupidity of the race that was his to conquer. It kept his urge to burn down their filthy cities strong. An Invader must always be strong-willed. Of course.

And then there was Dib. Dib was the most FUN to hate, because Dib knew too much, far too much. So the hate Zim felt always found its focus in the small pale boy's body.

As did the hate of others, apparently; today Dib was nursing a particularly ugly brown and yellow bruise smeared along the left side of his revoltingly malformed head. It seemed to be giving him trouble as he ate. He winced each time he chewed, but seemed to be forcing himself to continue, working his way in slow bites through his meal.

Zim picked at the filthy dish before him - some sort of horrible white things in some sort of even more horrible sallow whitish-grey sauce; he dared not speculate what it might have been- and pondered bringing his own food, like the Dib-monster often did. Ah, but then the Dib-beast might see that as a sign of weakness... no.

He idly wondered where Dib had gotten the bruise. Oh, it wasn't as if he was concerned or anything- he was just bored and curious. At first he had thought he might recruit some of the abusers of Dib to help him with his plans of conquest, but he had rapidly learned that the horrible human-children that hated Dib tended to dislike HIM as well.

Idly he imagined how it must have been.

The bigger children probably chased Dib. Maybe all the way from his house to school, cutting him off from the questionable safety of the yellow bus. The human would be panting and running wide-eyed with fear. Gasping for breath, sometimes looking back, seeing them still coming, heavy sneakers slapping over the concrete. Knowing there was no escape.

Zim's eyes wrinkled with amusement as he continued to daydream. He sniggered meanly under his breath.

The human would have.. tripped maybe, sure. And then his enemies would fall on him. Hold those scrawny little arms down while he screamed. Maybe one would try to cover his mouth too, but oh, the Dib... he always bit when that was tried. If he was able to. Zim had more than one tooth mark in his own superior fingers from trying- Dib's teeth were sharp enough even to bite through gloves!

Would they go for the head first or... no, the stomach. Yes, that's what those crude humans usually did. Humans knew what to do to hurt each other. A good hit to the stomach. Knocks out the air, yes. Then the slapping, the punching, the name-calling. Zim never did entirely understand what 'faggot' meant, or why they would call the puny sticky boy a pile of wood fit for burning. Zim shrugged. Humans were weird. And stupid.

A few minutes of this, usually, was enough, and then they'd get up, maybe kick him in the ribs once or twice in a sullen way, and walk off laughing. Congratulating themselves on their achievement. And the human? He'd be smelly. Oh, such a foul stench. Covered in dirty dirt and sour sweat and probably his own foulsmelling blood. His nose bled like a faucet when he was beaten for some reason.

And then the Dib, the stupid horrible unkillable Dib BEAST, he would get up and wipe the noseblood on his dirty sleeve and stumble on. Collect his things if he had to. He would not cry. He never cried. Zim had never managed to make it happen; he doubted anyone else could pull tears from Dib either, if HE couldn't. The Dib would just screw up his face and lock his eyes tight and glare at the ground in simmering rage, his cheeks hot red.

Until he sat there, just like he was sitting there now, visibly bruised, bearing marks of shame for anyone with eyes to see. Being beaten was just another part of his daily routine now, wasn't it? How PATHETIC that he tried to HIDE it! Zim was sure there were many other bruises, concealed under the human' clothes, that stupid long black jacket with the upturned collar that he wore in every kind of weather. Zim had literally never seen Dib in any other clothing, ever. Not even when every other stinkbeast child came to school in shorts and loose shirts whining about the miserable punishing sun. Dib just sat there in his long coat and heavy jeans and boots and bland face shirt and sweated, pig-like, silent. Every day.

Just like he always sat in the same place and ate nearly the same lunch every day, gave the same scowling stare across the desks to Zim in class, and across the lunchroom while they 'ate'.

Zim felt a strange urge to lunge at the human right then and there, and rip away his clothes. Oh no, it wasn't like -that-. If Dib were to be killed by his own people some time that would only be a beautiful, hilarious irony; Zim would climb to the top of the skool and scream with glee if it ever happened! But there was a perverse curiousity in the Irken's mind. Where all Dib's wounds were. How deep they went. He wondered how many of the Dib-thing's damages were from him, and how many were from other humans. It would be... bad, if he hurt Dib less than others did. That just wouldn't do at ALL.

He got up suddenly, abandoning the tray of muck on the table. No one even noticed, or if they did, they didn't care enough to comment.

Two seconds later Zim jabbed his claw into the center of the yellow spot on Dib's face. Poke. Smirk. "That looks like it hurts."

Dib slapped his hand away, and glared. Pain flashed through his eyes when he raised his hand. "Get lost, Zim."

But Zim grinned and grabbed at the human's slappy-hand, captured the boy's wrist and shoved back the coat-sleeve, exposing a length of Dib's pale arm. As he'd anticipated there was damage around the wrists, and a purple smudge near the elbow. "Mmmhmm. I thought so." _Those aren't mine. Where are -mine-?_ "Got your stupid face kicked in on the way here again, huh? They held you down, didn't they?" Zim leaned in over Dib's shoulder, leering, whispering. "I bet you screamed and screamed."

Dib roared, "I SAID, LEAVE ME ALONE!" His scream drew the unwanted attention of others; the whole cafeteria turned and stared at them. The human and alien froze like animals caught in a trap and stared back at the collective. Zim grimaced, realizing he still held Dib's arm. Dib jerked his hand free and looked away.

"Freaks," Zita mumbled.

The stillness around the other children's tables shifted back into casual babble. Dib just got up and left the table, stumbling to the doors leading outside; shoving his entire food-tray down the trash-receptacle. He slammed his hands into the door release-bars and all but kicked his way outside.

Zim chuckled. "Heh." An odd contrast on the sickly linoleum floor caught his attention, and he glanced down. Small dark red drops formed a rough path marking where the human-stink had gone.

Dib was bleeding.

---

Zim quickly pursued his hated enemy, his amazing eyes only needing a moment before they located the hideous Dib-beast's location; sitting slumped on one end of a see-saw plank, arms folded over tbe metal hand-rail, propping up his oversized head on his forearms. The alien stomped over the foul-smelling wood chips and grabbed the opposite end of the see-saw with his spider-leg extensions, yanking the board down hard. Dib yelped as he was suddenly lifted off the ground and found himself dangling in mid-air.

"Why are you -bleeding-, Dib?" Zim hissed. _If you should bleed it should be at MY hands!_

Dib kicked feebly at the air, trying to throw his weight around to rock the thing to let himself down as he clung to the handrail. But Zim's grip was unshakable; the board did not move even an inch.

"Ghhh. Let me down NOW, Zim!"

The Irken leaned forward over the board, eyes narrowed. "Oh no. I'm NOT letting you down. Not until you tell me. You left your filthy blood all over the cafeteria floor. WHY are you BLEEDING?"

"None of your business!" Dib whined. "Just leave me alone."

"Ooohhh no. EVERYTHING that concerns YOU is MY business since you made everything of MINE YOUR business. -TELL ME-, Dib." Zim jerked the board quickly, let it drop a few inches then quickly slammed it up again. The boy gave a pitiful wail, his big head rocking back and forth on his shoulders; he started to go green.

"...Ahhhhh ! Jeez, Zim! Okay, okay! STOP!"

"That's BETTER!" Zim released the weight on his side of the seesaw and let Dib drop hard. The boy yelped again and fell on his ass as gravity caught him; the board hit the ground with a dull THWAP. While he was untangling himself, Zim pounced, throwing Dib down into the bug-infested wood chips underfoot and straddling his stomach. Dib screamed, but Zim just ground him down with a hand shoved over his mouth, and held him there while his free hand flipped up the base of Dib's shirt. Dib wriggled pathetically and yelled muffled profanities into the Invader's glove, but Zim did not relent. And he found staring blankly at the sight that greeted him.

The left side of Dib's blue shirt was stained wet purple. It was literally soaked in blood. Zim grimaced as the smell hit him hard; iron-tainted and metallic, a sickness-inducing smell made all the worse by being stifled under a hot coat and mixed with the human's awful sweat. The Irken all but wretched- yet, perversely, he was still curious. Ignoring continuing complaints from his captive, and the sudden shiver that made the human's skin go all duck-pimply, Zim grasped hold of a dry part of the shirt and shoved it up quickly toward the Dib's neck.

"MNNF!"

"Be quiet!"

Bitter sullenness exuded from the Dib-thing as he obeyed and went still, breathing heavily through flared nostrils. The human's pale white skin was streaked with eye-wateringly smelly red blood. Livid swollen bruises clustered around his ribs to both sides, but worst where the blood was. It was hard to see where the original wound was under the gore. Zim held his breath and stared, disoriented and dizzied by the overpowering smell, the raw redness. _I didn't do this._

Keeping his grip on the human, the Irken tutted and activated scanners embedded in his mechanical fingertips. They were designed to work even through his gloves, so no need to fear burning from the watery goo inside Dib's horrible flesh; he could dig around as much as he liked without injury to himself. Zim probed along the shuddering boy's side until he finally located the actual wound.

Then he pushed his finger in, causing Dib to gasp sharply, and rooted around slowly to let his scanners get their data. Dib wailed, his eyes widening above Zim's fingers, horrified.

It was a small incision, no more than an inch wide and about two inches deep just between the 5th and 6th ribs, as from a small knife. Non-vital damage.

_So why did the stupid human let it bleed and do nothing about it? _

He was not concerned, only curious. This didn't fit Dib's known behavior-pattern; this was an anomaly, some strange new twist. Zim urgently needed more data if this was a change in the human's methodology. Zim tightened his grip on the human, and ground his finger down harder into the wound to send a deeper scan through, causing fresh bleeding and making Dib cry out again.

_Why wouldn't he just have it closed? The stupid clueless nurse-woman; she would take care of it. Why would a human leave a wound open and bleeding?_ His processors puzzled and puzzled over this, but the answer came in a sudden flash.

Weakness. The same reason the Dib never shed tears when he was beaten, OF COURSE!

He grinned down, moved his hand free, wanting to enjoy hearing Dib's whimpering unblocked.

"I see. It would be showing WEAKNESS to let anyone know of the wound. It would be breaking the normal routine. Of course! You knew I would have been SUSPICIOUS if you were off-time to our class! And the nurse-hog would ask QUESTIONS..." He grinned at the look in Dib's wide eyes that told him he was right. He pressed further, an airy grin given to the human now. "Embarrassing, horrible questions. That would make the Dib feel shameful... maybe even he would be sent home, or to a hospital. All VERY horrible propositions for him! So perhaps, instead, he thought.. yes, that's IT! He thought he could fake me, ZIM out! Hide the wound, just like an animal might, fake strength until he could limp home, perhaps! YES! Except now I know. I KNOW, Dib. And I won't LET you fake your way through this."

Zim twisted his finger more- not scanning now. Just for the pleasure of hurting Dib. To make him know that he KNEW.

"You thought you could HIDE this from me! YOU thought I wouldn't see! But you're WRONG. I DO see. I see EVERYTHING, -DIB-." Zim pressed on one edge of the cut, tugged, making Dib feel like his flesh was TEARING... Wracked with pain, the human SCREAMED, dirty sweat rising on his skin. There was no hiding now, only naked suffering.

Some sick part of Dib was relieved.

Zim swirled his finger around inside Dib's cut again, ignoring his own feelings of revulsion at the squishy wet meat he felt inside the wound, choking back the urge to vomit at the smell. For once he had the human RIGHT where he wanted him. "Hurts, eh. I can make the pain stop, maybe..."

"Ghhh... what do you WANT from me?!"

Zim smiled wickedly. "I want your surrender."

"NO!" the human spat around the pain. He was too weak to kick Zim off; dizzy and breathless, with the world strobing brown at the edges.

Zim clicked his tongue against his smooth white teeth. "You must REALLY like HURTING." The alien's leer grew blacker. "Tell you what, DIB... I'll help you decide." The leftmost port of the Irken's pak slid open, a greased whisper, and from it emerged a delicate silver leg with a fine, pointy point. The sharp edge gleamed in the bitter yellow daylight, and its light stung Dib's eyes. "You can surrender, immediately, unconditionally, NOW, to ZIM. Or I can stop using my FINGERS to probe you... and start using THIS." The spider-leg moved like a snake, hovering over Zim's left shoulder, all but shivering eagerly. Reflecting Zim's sadist turn of mind.

Dib's throat worked. He glanced down in terror; the tip was moving toward his skin.

Zim was nonchalant, his eyes half-lidded. "It's about... seven inches long, DIB. How wide is your puny little torso again? Twelve inches?"

"..." No sound was coming out of his mouth. Dib's voice seemed to have fled. The human's eyes twisted up, panicky, darting from side to side. No one was coming. Nobody cared. Of course not.

The Irken pushed his face closer to Dib's. The human's breath was sour but Zim was in triumph; he hardly cared. "How many organs do you think I could get through with one blow?"

"T.. then kill me. Go on, Zim." Dib rasped. "... do it." He pinned chest fluttered, fresh blood spilling onto the damp woodchips. "Kill me. Everybody saw you follow me. They'll know it was you who did it. And that's all you get..." He drew another hard, broken breath. "I will NEVER surrender."

The tip of Zim's spiderleg was scraping at the skin above the wound. Snarling at the human's ceaseless defiance, Zim drove the leg savagely into the wound- with the full strength of his rage. Blood erupted from the corners of Dib's mouth as Zim punctured through his rib cage and punched all the way through Dib's left lung. The boy's body jerked upward, a spastic breathless twitch, and Zim pulled back, retracting the leg and glaring down angrily.

"Oh no. You don't get off THAT easily."

He left Dib marinating in suffering, and turned and bolted back toward the cafeteria doors, bellowing toward the disinterested woman in hairnet and asylum-green cook's outfit behind the lunch counter. "ATTENTION filthy cafeteria drone! I have discovered that the child called Dib is WOUNDED and therefore insist that a NURSE be summoned at once!"

Yes, this was perfect. No one could blame ZIM; Dib was already injured. The blood on the floor made that PERFECTLY clear to any human eyes that cared to look. And it was the thing Dib wanted LEAST; to be uncovered. To be humiliated. To have his injuries EXPOSED to all.

He didn't have to KILL Dib to destroy him. Oh no.

Zim was the epitome of false concern as he held the door open, as the team of white-coated adult humans moved outside and found the Dib lying in a pool of his own filth among the playground equipment. And because he was SO CONCERNED he asked permission to tag along while they transferred the boy into one of their slow-moving vehicles.

He smiled happily down at Dib all the way to the hospital. And as the human slid in and out of awareness, Zim mouthed words to him, with joy in his heart: "I win."

---

_ A/N: Senri gave me lots of good comments on this one and generally has been encouraging me to repost my stuff. So here ya go, another little piece of madness from me. :) _

_jrandomlurker(at)yahoo.com _


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